A man who has travelled in every part of Europe expressed the opinion that the prettiest ankles are to be found in Genoa, and the least shapely in Prague. “In Italy you do not find the atrocity of the silk stocking with a cotton foot and top,” he observed. “Englishwomen spoil the appearance of their usually pretty feet not by the shoes they wear, which are in excellent taste, but because they will not pay the price for all-silk stockings. They wear stockings with horrible patches appearing above the ankles, thus destroying completely the beauty of the foot. In Italy, and especially in Genoa, women wear good stockings, dainty high-heeled shoes, in which they look charming. In Prague, where German customs survive, women wear light-coloured woollen stockings on legs that ought to be made as inconspicuous as possible.” A shoemaker stated that whereas several years ago the shoe most constantly in demand was a five, it is now a six, or a six and a half. Sevens are frequently asked for. Mr. Edouard van Waeyenberge, writing in a London paper from Weston-super-Mare, suggests that Englishwomen have the slimmest ankles in the world. ‘I wandered about France for ten years,” he writes. “I visited Arles, which has a great reputation among artists for beautiful women. I have seen more beautiful ankles among Englishwomen than ever I saw on the Continent.” “Where is the traveller, who after wandering about England, does not admit that there are here too many beautiful women for one’s peace of mind?” An artist pointed out to the same paper that slim ankles have not always been the artist’s ideal of beauty. “Go in to the sculpture section of the British Museum and look at Aphrodite entering her bath.” he said. “A beautiful figure, assuredly. But slim ankles? No! In this case the ankles are decidedly thick and shapeless. In Greek and Roman sculpture the feet are often concealed by draperies; but where they are revealed it is rare to find an ankle which, while in proportion, is also slim and shapely, as we understand shapeliness to-day".
- 'Woman's World' column, Dominion, 22 January 1923, p.2
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